Part 57

"Of course," he says to me, "the girl wouldn't be apt to talk very free to you about it, especial since you was in bed."

"Was I?" says I. "Oh, all right, if I was in bed! If I didn't talk to Bonnie Bell a while here last night, then everything is done, and I'm glad to know it."

"Well, where's she now?" says he. "I'm hungry as all get out; and you know I can't eat till she comes down to breakfast--I've got to have her setting right across the table from me, like her ma used to set. Oh, hum! I suppose some day she won't be setting there no more. Just you and me'll be setting there, looking at each other like two damn old fools. That's what fathers is for, Curly," says he. "That's the best they can get out of the draw.

"Well, that's what I've been living for ever since she was knee-high--just to make her happy; just to give her, like her ma told me I must, the place in life that she had coming to her. No little calico dress and a wide hat for Miss Mary Isabel Wright now, I reckon, Curly. Her game is different now. Them Better Things is coming her way, I reckon now, Curly. She's left the ranch and is playing a bigger game--and she's won it. Well, I'll tell 'em both how glad I am; but I wisht she'd come down to breakfast, for I'm getting right hungry."

She didn't come. I couldn't say anything to him yet, for I didn't exactly know what the truth was; Bonnie Bell hadn't told me whether or not she accepted Tom, but only said he was going to come back again. I wisht she'd come down and take this thing off my hands, for I was getting cold feet as shore as you're born.

He walks up and down, getting hungrier all the time, and singing "Tom Bass He Was a Ranger!" But she didn't come. At last he calls our William; and says he to William:

"Go send Annette up to ask Miss Bonnie if she's ready for breakfast."

"Yes, sir; very well, sir. Hit's all growing quite cold, sir," says William; and he went away.

He come back in a few minutes and stood in the door and said his Ahum! like he always did, and the old man turned to him.

"Beg pardon, sir, but Miss Wright's mide says Miss Wright 'as not come in."

"Not come in! What do you mean?"

"She's not in her room, sir. The mide thinks she's not been in her room during the night."

"What's that? What's that?" says he. "Curly, didn't you just now say she was here? Wasn't you up after I was?"

"I seen her around midnight," says I--"maybe later; I don't know. I thought she went to bed. I never did hear her go out. She couldn't of gone out--I'd of heard her."

"You'd of heard her! With you in bed yourself? What do you mean?"

The old man turned to me now and seen my face. He come close up to me.

"Where was you?" says he. "What do you mean?"

"Colonel," says I, "she was here after midnight. I ain't been to bed at all tonight."

"What did she say to you? Why didn't you go to bed? Where is she? What have you done?"

"I ain't done nothing," says I. "I've been trying to talk to you for days, and I couldn't. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to interfere in any girl's business and this shore is hers."

"It's hers?" says he, cold and hard. "I'm in this too. There's something in here that's got to come out. Come!" says he.

He motioned to me and I followed him up the staircase to the part of the house that was Bonnie Bell's--the second story and on the corner toward the lake. She had a fine, big bedroom, with wide windows, all the wood in white, and all the silks a sort of pale green.

We walked into the room; and he didn't knock. The room was empty! Her bed hadn't been slept in. On a chair, smoothed out, was her pale blue dress, which I remembered.

"That's the one she wore last," says I, pointing to it. "She's changed it."

"She's--she's gone!" says her pa. "Gone--without asking me--without telling me! Where's she gone? Tell me, Curly. Has--has anybody---- My girl--where is she? Tell me!"

He had hold of my shoulders then and shook me; and I ain't no chicken neither.

I got a look at the bed then, and there was something on the pillow. I showed it to him. It was a letter.

If you've ever seen a man shot, you know how it gets him. He'll stand for a time like he ain't hurt so bad. Then his face'll pucker, surprised, and he'll begin to crumble down slow. That was the way Old Man Wright done when he read the letter. It was like he was shot and trying to stand and couldn't, only a little while.